Behind the scenes of All Dolled Up 3! (Patreon)

Today I'm sharing the process pics of the third part of All Dolled Up. I had so many sketches and screenshots of the process that I had a hard time making a selection, also I thought it would be better to share the process for the three illustrations together. 

On the one hand, I thought it would be interesting to share the discarded sketches, but I realized they were too messy... Normally, when I'm sketching, I like to play with pencils and work on different compositions and poses, trying not to pay attention to the details and just focusing on the way the space is filled. When I find a composition I'm more or less happy with, I add a bit of detail with either a softer pencil or a marker, normally I try to use a marker with a big tip, as pencils or thinner markers let me lose time with details that aren't important in this part of the process.

Once the sketch is ready, I start working directly on the definitive piece with pencils. I should take some pictures of this process the next time, usually I'm so focused during this time that I forget to document it and I think it's cool seeing the final drawing come to life. In general terms, I start with simple lines and bidimensional shapes and once the space has the correct distribution I start adding details like the expressions, hair, clothing and some directions for the background.

Some time ago, I used to finish the whole illustration with pencils before starting with the final inks, but I don't follow this process anymore for two reasons: First of all, I think it's a waste of time, worse than adding too many details on the sketch because the pencil lines get erased at the end. The second reason (and the most important for me) is that when I finish the illustration with pencil, it looks different to the finished illustration with inks. Pencils have a different warmth and expressivity than markers, which means that very often there are many elements that I find better in the version that's going to be erased, which is frustrating.

For this reason, there have been times when I've decided to use the finished pencil version and just skip the inking step, but I always find out that, despite liking the lineart version, it doesn't look that nice and clean when I add the digital colours. Also, I really enjoy the inking step, it's always my favourite when the basic shapes are ready and it's time to freely add the details without being able to erase anything!

Once the lineart is finished I add the digital colours. As I've mentioned on other occasions, I like to start with lights and shades as I think it helps me to create better volumes. After the lighting, I add very plain colours to every element of the illustration and finish by adding other details like reflections and texture to give more life to the piece. Finally, it's time to adjust the text and share it with the world!